In three days’ time, Jiang Nong had just about adjusted to being back in her sixteen-year-old body.
Though there were endless books to read and endless lessons to catch up on, at least she was young, healthy, and—most importantly—hadn’t entangled herself with Yu Lingxin again. Everything still held promise.
The rest could be planned out slowly.
Having been ill for so many years, the sudden return of good health left Jiang Nong almost giddy. She sat by the window at the hour of Chou, waiting for sunrise.
Ruiyi Palace wasn’t large, and it sat in a remote corner—the main hall and courtyard in front, a row of side rooms and a storehouse in back. In total, there were only two outer-court attendants tasked with sweeping and cleaning. After seven straight days of rain, they had to rise early to clear away the fallen leaves and puddles before dawn.
The two maids, yawning and holding their brooms, walked into the courtyard—and met Jiang Nong’s gaze as she leaned by the window.
She wore plain clothes, her hair loose and unbound. Having just recovered from illness, her pale little face was half-obscured, making it seem even smaller. Her pupils were large and dark, her lashes thick and shadowy—delicate and ethereal to the point of otherworldliness, her head tilted against the windowsill. But when she saw them, her eyes curved into a smile, and she came alive. She raised her hand, beckoning them over, and gave them two fruits.
The attendants were hardly surprised to see her awake in the dead of night waiting for sunrise. They tucked the apples into their sleeves, grinned, bowed, and went back to sweeping leaves. They even picked out a few pretty ones to save for Jiang Nong as bookmarks.
Even though Jiang Nong was not highly regarded by the king, and her mother, Lady Song, was low-ranking and without favor, and she herself had little money to give as rewards—none of the servants at Ruiyi Palace ever tried to jump ship to a better post. Because serving her meant peaceful, stable days, without the constant fear of morning and evening.
From sixteen to twenty-six, Jiang Nong hadn’t changed much. If there were no mountains in the palace, even if the sky rained knives, as long as she wanted to see the sunrise, she’d get up in the middle of the night and climb a mountain to watch it. Someone who followed her whims so completely was truly a rare thing.
At the hour of Mao, the Xi Kingdom—after seven days of rain—finally welcomed the long-awaited sun. The rising sun kindled slowly in the east, like a ball of fire, a ripe crabapple, wrapping molten lava ready to burst forth, carrying boundless vitality. Jiang Nong’s pale face was gilded with a thin layer of warmth. She felt her own life reviving in that very moment.
That feeling of revival lasted right up until the moment she stepped into the academy—until the instant she saw Yu Lingxin.
The academy was located at the southeast corner of the palace: the Literature Hall to the east, the Martial Hall to the west, and the library behind. Plane trees were planted throughout the grounds. The academy buildings were all constructed of dark green tiles and beams, with cloud-scroll patterns carved into the tile-ends—simple, elegant, and refined, they exuded an air of scholarly grace from afar.
Drawing on her memories from her past life, Jiang Nong managed to slip into the Literature Hall classroom before the Grand Tutor arrived.
Yu Lingxin was tall and, being ostracized, his desk was placed far in the back. He was bent over, organizing his brushes and ink, isolated amidst the noisy academy. The moment Jiang Nong entered, he was the first person she saw.
Yu Lingxin had even noticed her before she noticed him—his gaze fixed on her, as if he had been waiting for her all along. The instant their eyes met, he offered a shy, ingratiating smile. Then he quickly lowered his head and dropped his gaze, not daring to look at her again. His slender fingers clutched his brush stiffly, his body motionless, hoping for her response.
He hadn’t fully recovered from his illness and was forcing himself to sit here, so fragile he looked as if he might faint at any moment.
Heaven had blessed him with a fine appearance—no amount of hardship diminished it; on the contrary, his frailty made him pitiable. In her past life, Jiang Nong had been fooled by that pitiful act.
Even now, with him putting on this decent front, she couldn’t forget how she had died. Who else but a vindictive, ruthless, despicable wretch like Yu Lingxin would hate her enough to poison her so cruelly, torturing her slowly to death?
“Bad luck!” Jiang Nong cursed under her breath. She ignored him completely and went to her own seat, exchanging pleasantries with the others.
In her previous life, Yu Lingxin had been bedridden for half a month. With that shove of hers, he was up and moving in just three days—had she actually healed him?
Within the academy, even princes and princesses were not permitted to bring servants or maids. Jiang Nong had to tidy her things herself. Her desk had gathered dust after so many days away. In a hidden corner beneath it, she found a small package of honey-crisp pear-blossom pastries.
They were uncommon sweets, exquisitely crafted into pear-blossom shapes the size of fingernails, carrying a faint fragrance of honey and flowers. She got to eat them only a few times a year, and even then only when she won first place and received them as a reward from her father. What was rarer still was that these tiny, delicate pastries were completely intact—not a single piece broken. Clearly, they had been carefully selected before being placed here.
She didn’t need to think about who had left them.
In the entire palace, the only one who would go to such trouble to get her these was Yu Lingxin.
Jiang Nong turned and met Yu Lingxin’s gaze once more. She twisted away, staring at the package of pastries with mounting irritation.
She had done that to him—he ought to hate her to death! Not only did he not expose her, but he also sent her these things—what was he playing at?
Unable to bear the sight of them, she tossed them aside.
Ahead, Jiang Yuan was holding a small Vermillion Bird patterned mirror, carefully adjusting her hair. Through the mirror, she saw Jiang Nong throw away the pastries. Startled, she craned her neck to look and asked in a sweet, coquettish voice: “Those pastries are quite a rarity for you—how could you bear to throw them away? Have you fallen out with him?”
Taking a closer look at her, Jiang Yuan let out a gasp and thrust her mirror in front of Jiang Nong’s face: “Have you lost your mind? You came out looking like this? Oh my heavens!”
Jiang Yuan was the Seventh Princess. Her mother, Lady Li, held a high rank and was deeply favored, so even though Jiang Yuan consistently ranked at the bottom of her studies, she was still quite beloved by their father. She spoke in the same coquettish, babyish manner as Lady Li, and carried herself with an air of condescension—always sounding as though she were bestowing favors. She wasn’t particularly bright, yet she enjoyed the king’s favor, which made the other sisters—who clawed and fought for their father’s affection—fume with resentment. None of them were close to her.
To be honest, in her past life Jiang Nong had been jealous of her too—jealous that Jiang Yuan could do nothing and still be their father’s favorite daughter. Later, when Lady Li fell from favor and died in seclusion, Jiang Yuan lost her standing as well. Their father married her off to curry favor with a powerful minister. She tried to elope with a guard, failed, and impaled herself on a sword.
How fickle the world was, how changeable the human heart. In the end, all Jiang Nong felt was sigh and regret.
Having been given this new life, Jiang Nong would rather Lady Li remain in eternal favor and Jiang Yuan continue speaking without a care for anyone else.
Jiang Nong peered into Jiang Yuan’s mirror, flicked a stray strand of hair at her temple with her index finger, propped her chin up, and admired herself. She didn’t answer whether she and Yu Lingxin had fallen out. Instead, she said: “What’s wrong with me going out like this? I look gorgeous.”
She’d caught up on sleep after watching the sunrise that morning and truly hadn’t had time to get ready—she’d only dashed on a thin layer of powder before rushing over. In her previous life, she would never have allowed herself to be outdone by her sisters, who all vied for glamour and attention. She would have forgone sleep just to dress herself to perfection before coming, especially with Jiang Yuan preening like a peacock up front.
Her teasing response stunned even Jiang Su and Jiang Miao—they looked at her as if they’d seen a ghost. Jiang Yuan had braced herself for either being ignored or snapped at. Now, mouth agape and flustered, she fumbled around for a moment before pulling out a small pot of lip rouge and tossing it to her: “You—you have no shame! Your lips are as pale as a ghost’s! Here, use my good stuff—you’ve never had anything like this, have you~”
Jiang Yuan had always loved bold, vibrant colors, and her lip rouge was a shocking red. Jiang Nong only dabbed on a thin layer with her fingertip to brighten her complexion, then passed the exquisite little gilded, silk-embroidered box back, poking Jiang Yuan in the back and mimicking her singsong tone: “Thank you, Seventh Sister—you’re so kind~”
Behind her, she saw Jiang Yuan’s ears flush crimson. Jiang Nong buried her face in her desk, laughing so hard she couldn’t straighten up.
Scanning the room, she still recognized most of the people—her brothers and sisters, whose names she could put to faces. Her own full-blooded brother greeted her briefly before hurriedly closing his eyes to recite his texts.
Jiang Nong’s gaze settled on Jiang Su. Now she was worth mentioning.
Her Fifth Sister—an aloof, ethereal prodigy whose birth mother, Lady Song, had died early. She had been raised under the Empress’s care. No one would have guessed the depth of her endurance and ambition. If Yu Lingxin hadn’t gone mad and destroyed the Xi Kingdom first, Jiang Su would have already conspired with her father-in-law, Grand Commandant Chen, to usurp the throne, install her dim-witted husband as a puppet, and rule from behind the curtain.
Jiang Nong asked herself honestly—she was far inferior. She lacked both Jiang Su’s forbearance and her step-by-step cunning. Perhaps the reason Yu Lingxin poisoned her to death was also because she couldn’t control her temper and kept wanting to slap him from time to time.
Jiang Su caught her staring and returned a puzzled look. Jiang Nong smiled at her, and Jiang Su forced a stiff smile back.
Jiang Miao, meanwhile, shared some dried tangerine peel candy she’d brought, asking timidly: “Ninth Sister, try some—do you think it might soothe your throat a little?”
Jiang Miao, her younger sister by just two months, was not particularly brave, always quiet—much like her mother, Noble Consort Nie.
Jiang Nong picked up a piece, fed it to Jiang Miao first, then popped one into her own mouth, praising: “Of course it helps! My chest was so tight and stuffy, and it cleared right up the moment I ate it! Miao Miao is a culinary goddess!”
Jiang Miao squirmed shyly, her cheeks flushing pink as she held the candy in her mouth.
Several princes teased her, saying that she’d been away from the academy for days with no one to admire her, which was why she missed her Ninth Sister so much.
Having missed the seasonal examination, Jiang Nong had temporarily fallen behind in the tangled web of interests among the princes and princesses—at least in the short term, she posed no threat to any of them. That was why the atmosphere today was more harmonious and amicable than usual, and everyone treated her with extra warmth and sincerity.
Even in the Xi royal palace, where interests constantly clashed, no one truly disliked Jiang Nong.
She carried a vibrant vitality that couldn’t be simply summed up as lively, bright, kind, or upright. It was a radiance that drew people toward her—a light that made them feel safe from schemes and falsehoods, a refuge of stability and happiness. Just being near her brought comfort.
She was a clear, sun-warmed stream of living water, laid bare and transparent before all. Her emotions were unrestrained, free, and vivid—her anger and joy never concealed. For someone like her, beauty was merely the icing on the cake.
Yu Lingxin was just one of the many who liked Jiang Nong—and now, the most insignificant of them all.
He knelt in the shadows beyond the reach of sunlight, ignored by everyone, his expression hidden—obscure, blurred, inscrutable. His back sat straight as a ramrod, watching as the others offered her smiles—genuine or not—and she returned each one in turn.
His eyes never blinked, able to hold only Jiang Nong’s figure. Until his vision grew dry and ached, and in that eye that saw everything dimly, her image wavered through watery light, fragmenting into illusion.
Yu Lingxin’s hands, resting on his knees, clenched so tightly that his nails dug deep into his palms.
Jiang Nong, Jiang Nong, Jiang Nong, Jiang Nong…
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